


The Left Shoulder

by 80000_Bees



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 18:30:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2631902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/80000_Bees/pseuds/80000_Bees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sleeping is hard when it's the middle of winter and one of your arms is made of metal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Left Shoulder

It’s sometime in the small hours and Bucky’s shoulder hurts.

He’s under about eight blankets, in his bed, in his and Steve’s apartment in the Avenger’s tower, and despite the fact that the entire tower has state of the art climate control which makes everything cosy and nice even in the middle of winter, and yet the metal in his shoulder is still giving him cold-related problems.

Bucky grumpily snuggles his shoulder into the mattress – sometimes putting pressure on it works. The problem here is that the metal and mechanisms take a hell of a long time to warm up, and even then they don’t quite reach his core body temperature. It’s not a problem in the summer months (in fact, the metal can overheat, which brings a whole new set of problems) but during the winter…

He throws back the covers and sits up angrily, using his other hand to press against the metal joins, hearing the soft whirr of servos as he rolls his aching shoulder. It’s barely painful – He can remember having worse. 

A lot worse…

This is the first winter he’s been… well, okay enough, he guesses is probably the term, to find this a problem. He’s sure he’s had this before, but this is the first time he’s found it a problem on its own. Or been able to distinguish it through all the other shit that he was going through.

Which means the fact that he can’t sleep because his shoulder hurts is probably progress.

He should probably tell Tony about this problem. Bucky has a lot of mixed feelings about his left arm, but he knows Tony has a nerdy love affair with the thing. And he’s been pretty good about it too – even now, Bucky’s still not really comfortable with any kind of lab setup, but after a few months in the safety of the Avenger’s tower, one of the servos in his elbow had seized, leaving his arm locked up and folded so his hand was up near his face. That morning, he and Steve had laughed so hard they’d wound up on the floor – and every time Steve looked like he was going to recover, Bucky would just waggle his metal chicken wing and they’d be back on the floor, shaking with laughter.

Neither of them had laughed like that in a long time. It’d been good – and Bucky didn’t feel quite so tightly wound when he’d sat on the bench in Tony’s workshop, listening to Tony ramble excitedly about the arm’s construction, and cursing whoever had thought this particular choice of alloy was a good idea or something. Bucky hadn’t really been listening – just holding Steve’s hand with his other arm and trying to stay calm. 

Sometime after that, on one of Bucky’s good days, Tony had come to him with a hard drive full of ideas for improvements on his arm. Bucky had refused, until a few weeks later the servo at the shoulder seized. After that there was a whole little train of glitches, probably from Bucky going so long without any sort of matinence. Tony got very familiar with how the arm worked, and in the end they’d had to implement some of the ideas Tony had just to get it back in working order.

So now Bucky’s arm still needed matinence, but now he could go for much longer without having to find Tony because his hand was spasming uncontrollably.  
About a year later, the researchers at California Tech. asked if Bucky would let them have a look at his arm, and use their findings to help with their own attempts at full-functioning prosthetic arms and hands. Bucky had to think about it for a few days – and had eventually asked Tony to send the plans, with a few of Bucky’s own notes:

1\. Make it lighter.  
2\. Probably a good idea not to surgically attach it.

Tony threw in money, too – a lot, to Bucky’s understanding. Enough to make the folks California Tech. name their first commercially-produced model after Bucky and another building after Tony.

Two weeks ago, Bucky had seen a girl of about eight in the park with a new right arm prosthetic. It had the touch-sensitive silicon “skin” that they’d recently developed, rather than the chrome-plated steel Bucky had. He’d had a little cry about that, much to the confusion of her parents.

It was a comforting memory to think of while Bucky shook his arm around increasingly violently to try and get rid of the ache. 

He flung himself back into the mattress. This wasn’t working. Maybe he should get up and go for a jog or something – see if anyone else was still up. Natasha kept some very interesting hours sometimes.

The mattress shifted as someone sat on the edge, and Bucky tensed reflexively, metal hand balling into a fist with a click.

‘It’s okay, Bucky,’ said Steve, voice furry with sleep. ‘It’s just me, it’s okay.’

Bucky relaxed, sighing. ‘Hey.’

‘Hey. Arm giving you trouble again?’

‘Yeah – it’s the cold.’

‘You want a hand?’

Bucky nodded sheepishly. ‘Yeah.’

Steve slid into the bed behind him, feeling for the cool metal Bucky’s left shoulder. His hands were so sleep-warm that even with his deadened, metal-covered nerves, Bucky could feel the warmth.

Within a few minutes, the ache started to recede. Bucky finally relaxed into Steve’s arms, feeling Steve adjust his hug as the pair of them dropped off in each other’s arms.


End file.
